"GI Joe" Director Confirmed

Paramount Pictures has set Stephen Sommers to direct "GI Joe," the live-action feature based on Hasbro's line of action figures. The studio is hiring a writer immediately, and has set a February production start for a summer 2009 release.

The accelerated production schedule began right after Sommers pitched his version of the film to Paramount chairman-CEO Brad Grey and production prexy Brad Weston on Wednesday evening. He was hired in the room.

Hasbro's Goldner said that the mythology of G.I Joe was fleshed out during the 1980s through 155 issues of Marvel Comics, as well as an animated TV series. There are about 30 core characters, good and evil, that can be exploited in films.

While some remember the character from its gung-ho fighting man '60s incarnation, he's evolved. G.I. Joe is now a Brussels-based outfit that stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, an international co-ed force of operatives who use hi-tech equipment to battle Cobra, an evil organization headed by a double-crossing Scottish arms dealer. The property is closer in tone to "X-Men" and James Bond than a war film.